


carved in cursive through ice and skin

by othellia



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anna POV followed by Hans POV, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Two Shot, aka what do you do when your universe-prescribed true love is a murderface?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9711356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/othellia/pseuds/othellia
Summary: Anna was a total and utter klutz, and it was all the universe’s fault. Beneath an ever-scanning eye, she kept watch for castle servants, visiting ambassadors, their children. She tripped down stairs, bumped straight into everyone she met, anything to prompt those six, magical words: "I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?"[Canon-compliant soulmate AU of Anna/Hans. Two shot for now, examining thoughts and perspectives of each. Written for Hannatines 2017]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day One of Hannatines 2017. Prompt was "Canon/What if?," which I'm bending a bit because, hey, soulmate AU, but I take refuge in the fact that it's a CANON soulmate AU.
> 
> Part 1 of 2, with the second part to come on Day Three.
> 
> (Normal "All that Glitters" service will resume shortly. I just wanted to do something small and fun. And readerly painful... because apparently that's my thing. Sorry, not sorry.)
> 
> ALSO, I had the BEST title for this but then I didn't save it or write it down anywhere so now I can't remember so you guys get this thought-of-in-thirty-seconds-i-guess-it-will-have-to-do title instead. You're welcome.

Anna was a total and utter klutz, and it was all the universe’s fault. Beneath an ever-scanning eye, she kept watch over castle servants, visiting ambassadors, their children. She tripped down stairs, bumped straight into everyone she met, _anything_ to prompt those six, magical words:

_I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?_

It didn’t matter that the castle didn’t get many new visitors—hadn’t gotten _any_ since that one, sudden morning when Elsa had barricaded herself away from the rest of the world. It didn’t matter that, of the few people she knew, everyone was at least twenty years her senior. It didn’t matter because those six, magical words that were written across the inside of her wrist meant exactly one thing:

True love.

* * *

Anna let out a gasp of shock mixed with pain as something large and heavy and white collided into her. Her left foot stumbled straight into a bucket and she tipped over, falling. Her back hit the sharp, wooden boat with a painful thwack. As she struggled to reorient herself, there was somehow a second thwack and seaweed was sent flying into her face.

“Hey!” she shouted beneath its slimy tendrils.

“I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?”

“Well, _obviously_. You just hit—”

Anna froze.

Six words. Seven syllables. How many times had she repeated them to herself in her head? Whispered them beneath her covers at night, tasting the way they fell off her tongue?

Heart racing, Anna pulled the seaweed from her eyes. She sharply inhaled.

A prince.

A full-fledged, goddamn prince on horseback was staring at her, and he was _gorgeous_. His green eyes were wide with worry. As Anna watched his lips move, she realized that he was saying something to her. Further apologizes. And then all too fast he was dismounting, walking over to her, holding out his hand—

Anna stared at it. Then she stared up at him.

There was nothing beyond his shallow expression of worry. No spark of recognition. No deep, shivering awe like so many of her storybooks had promised her. Then again, the words on her wrist were vague. The words on his body could’ve been equally vague. Equally forgettable. She’d already forgotten what she’d said, so apparently they hadn’t been great ones.

Anna swallowed, cheeks burning. Obviously, she couldn’t straight up _ask_ the man if he was her soulmate—that’d be way too forward, not to mention she didn’t even know his name yet—but she couldn’t just _not_ say anything either.

And then she remembered the blessing of her mark’s incredibly public location.

Placing her hand in his gloved one, Anna let him pull her up. When she felt him tug away, she held firm. She turned both of their hands together, ignoring his brief confusion as she exposed the tidy, dark red cursive on the inside of her wrist to the sun. His eyes snapped to it.

“Anna of Arendelle,” she said, voice trembling, pretending as though she didn’t notice. She took up her skirts with her free hand and dipped into a small curtesy.

His eyes widened. “Princess?” he asked, eyes on her and _only_ on her.

Anna’s breath caught.

After eighteen solitary years, it was everything she’d imagined.

* * *

“You can’t marry a man you just met.”

Anna gaped at her sister. The universe gave her just enough armor for the insult to glance off. “You can when it’s true love,” Anna said firmly. “Hans is my—”

“What. Your soulmate?” Elsa’s gaze wandered over to Hans and she sighed. “Anna, love is more than just sharing a handful of words on your skin.”

“As if _you_ would know,” Anna muttered. “You don’t have any.”

Elsa flinched. A flurry of guilt coiled in Anna’s stomach; it was something They Did Not Bring Up. She gripped tighter onto Hans’ arm.

“You asked for my blessing, but my answer is no,” Elsa said stiffly. “Now… excuse me.”

“Your majesty,” Hans said, stepping forward. “If I may—”

“No, you may not, and I think you should go.” Elsa turned to a nearby servant. “The party is over. Close the gates.”

* * *

“But Hans is _not_ a stranger,” Anna said, crossing her arms. “He’s my soulmate.”

“And soulmate makes him not a stranger… how?” Kristoff asked. He snorted at her lack of answer. “Okay. Okay. What’s his last name?”

“Of… the Southern Isles,” Anna said with a roll of her eyes. Obviously.

“What’s his favorite food?”

“Sandwiches.”

“Best friend’s name?”

“Probably John.”

“Eye color?”

“Dreamy.”

“Foot size?”

Anna let out an exasperated sigh. “Foot size doesn’t matter. And if it did, the universe would’ve written carved that onto my skin too.” Anna smugly basked in the following silence for a glorious five seconds.

“So what are _his_ words?”

Anna’s smile fell. “What.”

“What are the words written on his skin?”

Anna opened her mouth triumphantly before suddenly realizing that she didn’t know.

Of course, it wasn’t her fault. The past twenty-four hours had rushed by in the craziest whirlwind of her entire life. Anna hadn’t gotten the chance to check Hans’ words because he’d told they’d been written across his chest, and while a part of her would’ve been fine with stripping him right then and there in the chapel of Elsa’s coronation, the other part had still been a bit concerned about sending out the wrong kind of signals and—

“You don’t know. Do you?”

Anna paused from where she’d started unconsciously rubbing her wrist and the small text written below. “I do too!” she insisted. “I just… forgot.”

“You forgot,” Kristoff said blankly. “Life-changing soulmate moment and you forgot.”

Anna’s face burned. The only excuse she had was the truth. “They’re written on his chest,” she mumbled.

Kristoff snorted. “Shouldn’t that have made them even more memorable?”

Anna looked away. She suddenly felt very small and very naive, and she didn’t _want_ to feel naive. “As if it matters what his words are,” she threw back, hiding behind a brittle wall of annoyance and cheer. “I _know_ Hans is my soulmate.”

“Uhh… I think the words are _exactly_ what matters in this case.”

“What?” Anna scoffed. “Like you’re some kind of soulmate expert?”

Kristoff paused. “No…” he said, shrugging as he glanced away. “But I have friends who are.”

Anna threw herself back against the seat of Kristoff’s sled.

Impossible.

He was just impossible.

* * *

Anna closed her eyes. At Hans’ touch, heat rippled across the surface of her skin, clashing with the ice that crackled through the bones of her chest. She leaned forward, waiting for his lips to brush against hers, waiting for—

“Oh, Anna,” Hans whispered darkly. Her eyes cracked slowly open in confusion. “If only there was someone out there who loved you.”

She stared at him.

“W-what?” The cold paralyzed her body, leaving her helpless as Hans left her side and made his way to the windows. “Y-you said you did. You’re my soulmate. You… you have my words.”

“I do?” Hans yanked the curtains shut. “Strange. I don’t remember showing you any proof of that.”

Anna’s head ran blank as Hans wandered around the room, snuffing out candles. As he doused the fireplace, the room into plunged into darkness. He was saying words, impossible, unbelievable words that she only half heard.

“But you have to have…” She undid her gloves with trembling fingers and shoved her bare wrist towards his face like that’d fix the terrible reality that was howling in around her. “Hans, you said my words!”

She strained too far, losing her balance, and fell. The pain that lanced up her shoulder barely registered. She kept her wrist extended. Hans glanced down at it with a brief, barely perceptible flicker, then sneered.

“With those words and the way you pathetically stumble through life, I’m surprised you haven’t gathered an army of one-way matches.” Hans knelt down and lifted her chin. Anna tried to jerk away, but her body didn’t seem to be listening to her anymore. “Tell me,” he drawled. “Were you really born this incompetent or was it just part of an act to help fling you into the arms of your _true love_?” He bit out the last two words, mocking and sharp.

Anna didn’t even bother swallowing back her tears when Hans let go of her chin and she dropped to the floor.

* * *

A frigid draft swirled up from the entrance of the castle’s dungeon, oblivious to the summer that’d returned to the rest of the kingdom above. Anna had procrastinated up until now, had made excuses for a full four days while Elsa and the Southern Isles ambassador talked—well, negotiated—argued, really—well… it was complicated.

Attempted regicide usually was.

Still, the fact of the matter was that Anna only had a scant hour left before his royal murderface was tossed onto a ship and sent scuttling back to the hole of a island he’d crawled out from. If islands were holes. Her metaphors could probably use some work.

Anna took a deep breath and descended the dungeon steps. The head guard stopped her at the bottom. With a nervous swallow, Anna told him she wished to see the prisoner. Told him the entirety of her demands. The guard looked less than pleased, but ultimately a royal command was a royal command. Oh, no doubt he’d go and tell Elsa later, and she’d chew Anna out for her stupidity…

But “later” was a distant, mystical thing at the moment. Right then, Anna only cared about “now,” and everything about “now” revolved around the red-haired man in the cell that the head guard was leading her towards.

Anna had tried listening to her friends, had tried following both Elsa and Olaf’s—and even Kristoff’s—advice that love wasn’t decided by some unknowable force scribbling random words on her skin but by actions and choices.

And she knew that Kristoff loved her, words or no words. And she…

She…

“Princess Anna,” Hans drawled from behind the bars of his cell. Both of his hands were cuffed with chains that hung loosely from the far wall. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

Anna nodded at the guard who unlocked the door and slipped inside the cell. She remained outside. She didn’t want to speak to Hans, didn’t want to touch him if it wasn’t necessary. And it _wasn’t_ necessary.

It _wasn’t_.

But…

She just had to know.

The guard shoved Hans back against the wall, his brawny frame easily overpowering any resistance the prince could’ve offered.

“Hmph. Never marked you as a voyeur, princess,” Hans spat, staring straight at her as the guard forcibly unbuttoned his waist coat, leaving bare the rumpled silk of his blue undershirt. One good tug was all it’d take. One tug and there’d be no more doubt. No more secrets.

The guard turned back towards Anna, awaiting her final signal.

Anna took a deep breath.

She only had Hans’ word that his soulmark was written across his chest. He could’ve easily lied about its location. He could’ve easily lied about having one entirely. After all, Elsa and Kristoff didn’t have marks. Perhaps it was just Anna as the odd one out. The defective one. The one who put all her eggs into some stupid, invisible basket, not checking to see if the thing even existed before charging out the door on her journey.

Anna nodded again.

The guard lifted his shirt.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Hans was a jerk, so this chapter ended up twice as long as I'd originally meant it to be.
> 
> Also Hans in this shares the same OC brothers as he does in All That Glitters. I swapped out Georg with Fritz in this though because it made more sense for a 17-year-old and 10-year-old-trying-to-be-cool to follow kid!Hans around then it did for a 17-year-old and 24-year-old. My head canon is that Erich talked Fritz out of being a jerk before eventually GTFOing into the wilderness.
> 
> Also also, I'm never going to do a Hans POV chapter in All That Glitters, so yeah. This is your guys' one glimpse into how I write him as a character.

Summers in the Southern Isles had been sticky, unbearable things for as long as Hans could remember. His nineteen-year-old brother Erich had pulled off his shirt an hour ago, a necessity during outside sparing practice. Hans envied him, envied the tiny spiral of words ringing neatly around the curve of Erich’s upper arm. Hans’ own shirt still clung to his tiny seven-year-old frame, plastered to his skin by his own sweat.

He fought for breath beneath the onslaught of Erich’s wooden sword.Even knowing Erich pulled his swings, each strike felt harder and harder as the sun climbed its way towards the top of the sky.

Sweat trickled into Hans’ eye, blinding him. Erich’s sword struck a second later, knocking Hans’ sword out of his grip. Hans panicked, caught between fleeing backwards and lunging sideways after it, and fell. His palms scraped against the dry dirt of the castle courtyard.

Laughter burst out—Manfried and Fritz. They were in the next fenced-off practice field over but hadn’t come there to spar. They’d come to watch Hans fail.

“Sorry about that,” Erich said, offering him a hand. Hans glared back up at it. “Right. The ‘I don’t want your pity thing’ again. My deepest apologies.” Erich swept into a mocking bow. “I should’ve known.”

Hans curled his hands into fists, ignoring the sting from the dirt and gravel, and pushed himself back up. He retrieved his sword from the edge of the practice field, narrowly resisted the urge to curse something at Manfried and Fritz. They’d love it if Hans lost his temper—a mark of victory for whatever twisted game they played with his life.

When he turned back, Erich was frowning at him.

“What,” Hans muttered.

“Nothing. Nothing! Just…” His eyes flicked down to Hans’ sweat-drenched shirt. “It’d be easier— Well, it’d be easier to practice like me.” Hans rolled his eyes as Erich swept into a pose that managed to flex all of his visible muscles.

A combination of the heat and his family… that was what’d eventually kill him. Hans stalked over to his water skin.

“You know why I can’t,” he muttered before slugging down half of it.

“No, I don’t know why you can’t,” Erich said. He was ditching the water break to practice spinning the hilt of his blade on his outstretched hand. “I know why you _won’t_ … And personally I think it’s a stupid reason, caused by caring too much about what stupid _people_ ”—he glanced at Manfried and Fritz—“think.”

Hans slowly lowered his water skin. Erich did have a point. That and the sun was starting to get _unbearably_ hot. He moved his hands to the bottom of his shirt.

“Hey!” Manfried suddenly shouted.

“Hey!” Fritz echoed.

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

Hans dropped his shirt, his face burning, and shut his eyes. He didn’t know why. It didn’t hide him from his brothers taunts. He remained still as Erich yelled out, threatening to beat them into next week. There was some more shouting, some scuffling sounds, and when he finally opened his eyes Manfried and Fritz were gone.

Not for long though. Never for long.

“Ugh, Manfried is the worst,” Erich spat as he hopped back over the fence. The knuckles on his right hand were speckled with blood. “Don’t worry too much about Fritz. I’ll talk to him later, let him know the cost of bad influ— Hey! What are you doing?”

Hans paused in the middle of his retreat, cringing at the use of the ‘word’ even though he knew Erich hadn’t meant it that way.

“I’m tired,” he heard himself say. “It’s too hot. Let’s practice later.”

“Hans, you can’t just let them—”

“I said I want to practice _later_!” Hans snapped.

“Oh… okay.” Erich was frowning. Hans scowled back—Erich had no reason to be frowning. It wasn’t his thing to be upset about. “Later then.”

Hans trudged back to the armory, the sun baking itself against the back of his neck. He can feel his soulmark across his chest, each letter gouging itself into his skin, visible proof that he was nothing more than the universe’s cosmic joke. Proof that he’d never be free from his older brothers’ jeering since his ‘true love’ was just one more domestic nag waiting to happen.

And that was assuming Hans ever found them in the first place. If he did, he sure wouldn’t be the one to notice. He’d lost count of the number of people who’d pretty much yelled his “magical words” right into his face.

Well, word.

Apparently the universe hadn’t even cared enough about him to give him more than one.

And that was fine.

Hans reached the armory and shoved the wooden practice sword back onto its shelf.

If the universe didn’t care about him, then he wouldn’t care about the universe. Hans didn’t need its true love. He didn’t need it making his decisions for him. It’d been doing a crummy job so far—thirteen prince, the unlucky and useless son—so he didn’t trust it with the rest.

Hans rolled up his shirt and scowled again at the large “HEY” that was scrawled across his chest—by far the largest soulmark he’d ever heard of anyone having, let alone seen in person.

No, he’d make his own choices. He’d forge his own path.

For better or worse.

* * *

“Anna of Arendelle,” the girl said, dipping into a curtesy. Hans barely heard her, his attention instead latched onto the words carved into the underside of her wrist, words that’d come out of his mouth less than a minute ago, displayed for all the world to see in the carefully-measured loops of his own handwriting.

His stomach sunk. It slowly coalesced into a horrible icy ball as he fought to keep his face neutral.

This wasn’t the plan.

Hans’ soulmate wasn’t supposed to exist. Not really. She _hadn’t_ existed for the past twenty-three years, nothing more than a wisp of an idea, a broken promise from the universe.

But more than that, Hans didn’t have _time_ for soulmates right now. He had a plan here, a mission and a—

His thoughts jerked back to her introduction: Anna of Arendelle. “Princess?” he asked. There were a handful of noble women named Anna in the northern kingdoms, but only one who would introduce herself with ‘Arendelle’ directly after her name, especially on the day of Queen Elsa’s coronation.

Anna’s face transformed beneath his gaze, a breathless wonder rippling across it as her eyes suddenly sparkled with delight.

Oh God.

She was one of _those_ soulmates.

Twenty seconds and the girl was utterly besotted with him. Hans swallowed, letting her keep hold of his hand as a thousand new possibilities collided against each other in his head.

Perhaps he could find a way to make this work in his favor after all.

* * *

Queen Elsa’s eyes were wide as she pleaded to him within the confides of her dark cell. “You have to tell them to let me _go_.”

Her words struck Hans harder than he wanted them to, all his possible futures suddenly spinning as precariously as a child’s top. Elsa had absolutely no idea where her sister was. No idea about anything.

“I’ll do what I can,” Hans said. The unease that slipped through his voicewas only partially faked.

As he retreated into the hall, he took a moment to re-calm his breath.

Hans had heard the usual tales of soulmates thrown together by fate only to get wrenched apart in a matter of mere days, sometimes hours. Usually the tragedy came via war or some other kind of meaningless death meant to impart some simplistic moral into the hapless listener. The survivor of the pairing was always cursed to continue on with a half-empty heart for the rest of his or her pitiful life.

Of all the stories, his mother had always loved those the most. She’d thought them beautiful and romantic. She’d read them to Hans and his brothers as bedtime stories for some godforsaken reason—probably part of the reason they were all so messed up now.

Hans personally considered them schmaltzy trash.

The fact that fate wanted to turn his life into that same trash disgusted him. Still if that was the game it wanted to play, then he’d play it. Anna’s sudden death would make it even easier to overthrow her sister, bringing him one step closer to his original goal and Arendelle’s throne.

As for the ‘side-effects’ of his impending loss…

Hans reassured himself they wouldn’t matter. After all, his heart hadalready been half-empty for years.

* * *

Hans deposited Anna gently down onto the couch. “She froze my heart,” she was saying, “and only an act of true love can save me.”

He stared at her. “A true love’s kiss,” Hans replied. The world shifted beneath him, then shattered back into clear focus. He was suddenly standing at the top of a great hill. The road he was meant to taken wound out before him in perfect clarity. There was only one thing left standing in his way. One last, annoying, residual string.

And it was up to him to cut it.

Hans reached out his hand to Anna’s cheek, felt its soft press as she leaned forward. Her eyes fluttered shut and his followed suit for a split-second…

Then he remembered who he was— no, _what_ he was.

His eyes cracked open, determined to study every fluctuation of emotion that would run across her face. He supposed if he owed her anything, it was that.

“Oh Anna,” he whispered. She opened her eyes slowly, as though hesitant to be torn from her glittering dream. “If only there was someone out there who loved you.”

And there it was, blank confusion giving way to old friends—shock, hurt, and betrayal. Hans idly wondered if Anna was as familiar with them as he was or if she was just a much a virgin in that regard as she was with nearly everything else in her pathetically cloistered life.

He moved to the windows.

“Y-you said you did,” she whined, high and piercing. He soaked himself in her voice; it wouldn’t do to block it out. After all, this was the price of his freedom. “You’re my soulmate. You… you have my words.”

He paused, hands gripping the curtains. “I do?” he said, yanking them shut. “Strange… I don’t remember showing you any proof of that.” Hans was glad of that. Glad to have saved himself a way out from Anna’s clutching, needy fingers.

The craziest thing was that it _wasn’t_ a lie. He’d keep his mark hidden. Anna had agreed to marry him based on nothing but a spoken promise and her own desperate belief for it to be true. Perhaps telling her the full truth would’ve shattered her heart even faster, crushed by the knowledge that, yes, it was her ‘true love’ that wanted her dead.

Hans moved about the room, extinguishing all sources of light and heat. She was still whining at him, trying to pull some mask from a face that she didn’t realize was nothing _but_ masks.

He dumped a pitcher of water into the fireplace and finally turned around. Anna had fallen onto the floor, her wrist stretched out as her eyes continued to bore through him, one last remaining ember that refused to go cold.

In the darkened room, her color-leeched face suddenly reminded Hans of one of his own, a strained recollection that was more dream than memory now, from once upon a time when he’d been small enough to curl up with his mother. When he’d believed in the stories that she’d read to him, believing in their promises that wishes really did come true.

He hated that memory of himself.

And he hated _her_ for triggering it.

Hans sneered. “With those words and the way you pathetically stumble through life, I’m surprised you haven’t gathered an _army_ of one-way matches.” He tried to find the right combination of words that would finally stamp out that hope, that irritating light. He knelt down and lifted her chin. “Tell me, were you really born this incompetent or was it just part of an act to help fling you into the arms of your _true love_?”

Her subtle flinch told him all he needed to know.

Hans dropped her and moved on. The day wasn’t even halfway to over yet. He needed to take care of _both_ sisters for this to work.

“You won’t get away with this.”

There was a sharp sting beneath her words that lodged itself somewhere deep in his ribs. Hans paused with the door cracked partly opened.

He glanced back, taking in the sight of Anna, of his soulmate, broken and half-dead on the floor, and pushed away his final kernel of uncertainty. “Oh,” he said, letting the smile curl up his face. “I already have.”

* * *

Hans scuffed his heel against the cold, uneven stone of the castle dungeon. Footsteps echoed in the distance.

Just great.

He steeled himself for another patronizing visit from the Southern Isles ambassador. For the past three days, the old man had lectured him over and over again about the mess he’d caused for his kingdom, for his brothers back home. They’d have to deal with the fallout and mistrust from not just Arendelle, but all their other neighbors as well. And then, beneath the old man’s surface lecturing was the dark undercurrent hinting that Hans’ worst disappointment of all was that he hadn’t succeeded.

In other words, typical Southern Isles politics.

A sarcastic greeting was already curling on the edge of his tongue. He swallowed it as Princess Anna came into view instead, accompanied by one of the Arendelle guards.

Hans allowed himself a split second of panic—what was she doing here? she wasn’t _supposed_ to be here—before layering it with an unconcerned smoothness gained from a decade of practice.

His chains clinked together as he leaned back against the wall of his cell. “Princess Anna. What an unexpected pleasure.”

The princess ignored him and nodded to her guard. Hans took in a sharp breath as the burly man entered his cell.

So this was it then? Her single punch on the ship deck hadn’t been enough? No, of course not. Obviously she wanted to see him ground to pulp. To see his physical body as broken and bloody as he’d left her mental one.

That’d be fine. Hans could tolerate pain. Just another blessing from his life of twelve older brothers.

Hans remained calm as the guard shoved him back against the wall. He braced himself for the first punch—

—which never came.

The guard’s free hand moved to Hans’ waistcost instead and began to roughly unbutton its front. A whole different panic suddenly flooded through Hans. He stared, helpless, too weak to shove the man away.

There no doubt as to what the guard—what Anna—was after.

And Hans didn’t want to give it to her.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Both the princess and the queen— They were supposed to ignore him, to toss him back to his older brothers, to completely and utterly forget that he’d even existed…

“Never marked you as a voyeur, princess,” Hans spat, casting out for any insult he could. Anything that had any hope of driving her away.

He glared at her through the bars but she held his gaze, clear and firm. The white streak that’d stained her hair had vanished, apparently healed by the power of her melted heart. He wondered if the power had been strong enough to scrub his words from her skin as well, but her hands were clasped together, wrists turned inwards and out of sight.

The guard undid the final button. He turned towards Anna, awaiting some further signal.

The three of them remained frozen for what seemed like forever, a bladed pendulum hanging heavy and invisible from above, and then Anna nodded a second time. Hans screwed his eyes shut as the guard lifted his shirt.

He could picture the sight. He knew she’d be able to read his mark. It was carved in the largest font he’d ever seen and there were only three letters _to_ read.

Which was again, Hans darkly muttered to himself, entirely _her fault_. If only Anna had been paying attention, if she hadn’t crashed herself into Sitron and yelled out so unthinkingly, then Hans would have something else written on his skin. Something normal. It never would’ve been the big, confusing embarrassment it was. It would’ve been…

Anna hadn’t said anything yet.

He had no idea what was going through her head, no idea what she’d even been hoping for by coming here. Perhaps validation that she hadn’t been a fool after all? That she’d trusted him because he _had_ been her ‘true love’? Or had she been hoping in the opposite? That no one so cruel and heartless could ever be _anyone’s_ true love and that hers was still out there—some mythical creature just waiting for her to pin renewed trust and dreams on?

Hans cracked his left eye open. The guard’s alertness had strayed; Hans took the advantage to shove the man away and yank his shirt back down. He had his hands on the lowest pair of waistcoat buttons, when the guard shoved him back. A bulky hand closed around his throat and squeezed. It lifted him up, further and further.

“Release him,” Anna said.

The hand obeyed and Hans dropped. He barely managed to catch himself on wobbling knees. By the time he recovered, the guard was already retreating and re-locking the cell door.

“Leave us,” Anna commanded without taking her eyes from Hans.

“But your highness—”

“Leave us.”

In that moment, Anna carried within her the same icy threat as her sister and the guard hurried away. As he left, silence rushed in. Hans waited for Anna to speak again. She didn’t.

Hans leaned against the wall and used it to slide down into a sitting position. He gave her a feral smile. “I assume you didn’t come all this way just to stare,” he said. “After all it’s me, your _true love_. So tell me, Anna: am I everything your fairy tales always promised?”

“Why did you lie to me?” Anna asked softly.

Hans scoffed. “Let’s see… I wanted your throne, I knew Elsa had to exit the picture to get it, I—”

“Not that. Why did you lie about the words?”

Hans paused as something strange scratched at the inside of his chest. “I never lied about that.”

Confusion creased Anna’s brow. “But you—”

“I said I’d never shown you proof of my mark, not that I didn’t have—”

“That!” Anna snapped, thrusting a pointing hand through his bars. “That right there! I don’t give a reindeer’s butt about the way you _phrased_ it! You left me to _die_ , Hans! Why?!”

Hans stared at her. His mouth was open, ready for the next smooth lie to come rolling out, but nothing came. Nothing seemed to fit except the truth— soulmates were a risk, someone else’s choice made for him, a weakness, a threat that’d strip bare and expose the pieces of himself he’d buried long, long ago—and Hans would choose death before he admitted that to anyone.

“I never wanted one,” he finally bit out. A half-truth. The closest he’d ever get.

Anna’s bottom lip trembled. To her credit, she didn’t cry. As she kept silent, Hans expected her to leave, to finally leave. That would be the end of this whole ragged affair and then he could—

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Hans stared at her.

No. That couldn’t have been what she’d said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry for being your soulmate,” Anna repeated. “I mean, I still blame you for everything else. I have absolutely _nothing_ to feel sorry about there, but…” She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “Elsa and Kristoff both don’t have soulmates and I— I’ve always felt sorry for them. I assumed everyone who didn’t have a mark wanted one like mine. I assumed everyone who _did_ have one was happy for it. I never thought—”

“Of course not,” Hans muttered. “You don’t think about anything.”

To his surprise, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t gasp in shock or pain or outrage.

Instead she giggled.

She giggled at him, muffling the sound, trying to scoop it back with her hands, and then broke down into hysterical laughter. She grabbed a bar of his cell for support as she sunk down to the floor.

“And here I thought I was the unlucky one,” she managed between gasps for air. “I mean, ‘are you okay?’ is bad enough but ‘hey’? Just straight out ‘hey’ and nothing else?” She shook her head as she dissolved into a second round of snorting laughter, oblivious to the rage bubbling up inside him. “Though I guess that’s also my fault, so whoops. Sorry about that too.”

_Sorry about that too._

The way she’d blithely said it, a rambled two-second apology for something that had chased him, had mocked him his entire childhood, like such a small gesture would _ever_ make up for what it had…

…and yet somehow she’d been aware enough to realize it was something he’d always wanted an apology for.

Hans grit his teeth. “Get out.”

Anna’s remaining laughter stopped. “What?”

“I said _get out_!”

The anger that snapped through his voice stopped him cold. Hans didn’t get mad, or, at least when he did, he didn’t let it show.

He never let it show.

Anna straightened her spine but remained kneeling on the floor with him. She looked him dead in the eye. “No.”

They stared at each other, caught at an impasse, barely noticing the approaching echo of more footsteps. Of more guards.

His head turned at the same time hers did. Anna jumped to her feet, smoothing her skirts as the Southern Isles ambassador arrived, flanked by four of Arendelle guards.

The ambassador lifted an eyebrow at Anna’s presence, but she didn’t say anything, just stepped back as the guards unlocked Hans’ cell door. Two gripped his arms while the others unlocked him from his chains. They steered him into the hallway, towards the outside world, towards home.

“Hans, I—”

Anna’s words dug into his skin, catching like a hook between his shoulder blades. He wedged his boots against the edge of a stone in the uneven floor, resisting the tugs to continue pulling him forward. One of the guards stepped in front of Anna, most likely paranoid that Hans would attempt one final attack against the royal family of Arendelle.

Her face was still visible above the guard’s shoulder. They locked eyes.

Hans’ nose twisted as his mouth pulled into snarl. After years and years of nothing but masks, he didn’t even know himself whether the expression was genuine or not anymore.

“Remember this, princess,” he spat. “Soulmarks mean _nothing_ to me. They never have. And they never will.”

He took in the sight of Anna’s wide, blue eyes fringed with white—exactly as they should’ve been—and then the guards shoved him forward, tearing her from view.

Hans shoved her from his thoughts as let himself be led down, down, down the dungeon’s long hallway until, finally, she was gone.


End file.
